Today we visited the BIg Wild Goose pagoda and the Terracotta Warriors both of which are pretty accessible however they require some prior planning unless you are fluent in Mandarin otherwise you could end up going round in circles!
The majestic Big Wild Goose pagoda stands 7 storeys high and has a lean to it but not as much as Piza! As you walk around the monastery you can visit the Buddha and the various other buildings and halls. In order to get in, our guide flagged down one of the entrance staff to open a large gate to allow me entrance. At first we decided to bounce my chair up the steps at the base of the pagoda, however we soon realised that there is an accessible ramp hiding on the right side of the pagoda, near the cemetery, to take you up to the majestic site.
As we travelled through Xi’an, I took a look at the general accessibility of the shops and it’s interesting because many of the local shops are level access as opposed to some of the major chainstores which are not. Although, we didn’t catch the subway in Xi’an, when I did my prior research I noticed that some of the subway stations are accessible and the trains themselves are almost level with the platform.
After a quick visit to a Terracotta factory and craft centre, with level access, we headed out the Terracotta Warriors in Lintang. As I said, it would probably take a lot of prior planning to find the proper accessible routes are as if you follow the wheelchair signs you still end up with steps. The are three pits within which he Warriors were discovered with pit 1 being the largest with 6000 Warriors…
It seems that you can only access the top viewing platform as there are steps down to the sides but we just bounced me down yet again!! Pits 2 and 3 are completely accessible as is the chariot museum but make sure you press the right floor in the museum in the it as everything is on -1 rather than 2 as we initially thought. Pit 3 is yet to be excavated which is why the photo below looks very bland.
It’s another early start tomorrow; 4 days in a row! We travel to Xi’an airport to catch a 2 hour internal flight to our final city of Shanghai. Let’s see how good Chinese airports are for wheelchair users!😀